Phoenix Reborn
by Dragonsdaughter1
Summary: Updated Jean's gone and everyone is taking it badly. An old friend of Prof. Xavier shows up with a rather unusual child who is much more than she seems.
1. The New Phoenix

A white clad figure motioned towards the newly made high water line and a circle of barren and scorched earth with a small dark object in the middle. The circle was the only area of ground below the high water line devoid of snow and debris. A second figure this time in silver, nodded.  
  
"The phoenix has died."  
  
"Finally," the second agreed grimly. "Perhaps order will once again be restored."  
  
"Perhaps, but perhaps not."  
  
"Shall we?" the one in silver gestured onward.  
  
"Of course."  
  
**************************  
  
Drawing closer, I could see the tattered dark bundle shake almost imperceptively. I knelt, reaching out with a white gloved hand. "Your Highness?"  
  
The bundle moved slightly, revealing a young child's soot covered face .  
  
"Your Highness, do you know who you are?" I asked in the ancient tongue of my people.  
  
The child nodded slowly, the dark soot and ash falling away from her hair, giving me the tiniest glimpse of blood red locks. "I am Japhi the Morning Star, the Princess of the Sun."  
  
"Do you know who I am?"  
  
"My Guardian, the White Dragon," she replied, still in a bit of a daze.  
  
Okay, so far so good. "What is the last thing that you remember from before your burning?"  
  
"Kat told me to hide."  
  
"Kat?"  
  
"Your ancestress, Katerina Draka."  
  
Okay.not so good, she's been dead for thousands of years. "Do you remember how you got here?"  
  
The girl looked around as if seeing her surroundings for the first time. She frowned. "We were in an abandoned barrow in the middle of a young wood when she made me sleep until such a time that she could revive me."  
  
"Your Highness, I am sorry to be the one to say this, but Kat died five thousand years ago. You have apparently missed sixteen burnings."  
  
The girl's reddish brown eyes widened in alarm. "Sixteen burnings? But that's absurd! It's impossible for me to miss a single burning even if I am unconscious!"  
  
"Apparently the spell that my great grandmother used to hide you also sent you into stasis. How much time did you have before your next burning was to take place?"  
  
She looked at me puzzled. "Almost the full three centuries, I had only burned fifteen years before. Why?"  
  
"We need to know what happened and where the barrow was. If you were fifteen at the time you went into stasis, then we need to look for the sudden appearance of a red haired girl anywhere from three to ten years of age."  
  
My sister Mel frowned in confusion. "But she just burned and any fool can see that she is he equivalent of a ten to thirteen year old!"  
  
"At my last burning, I was surrounded by Katerina and the Gaida so I could afford to take an infant's form."  
  
********************  
  
I rubbed my eyes before returning to the parchment-a late fifteenth century treatise on burrows-that was not written in English or any other modern language for that matter. Nearly a full year ago I had promised the newly born Japhi that I would find her past.  
  
"Ro?" asked a familiar voice.  
  
"Is something wrong little bird?"  
  
She shook her head. "No, but I did want to remind you that we need to leave soon for the United Nations hearing thingy in New York."  
  
Groaning, I looked for the closest solid object to bang my head against in frustration, maybe it would get me out of going to such a politically oriented event. "What if I gave you the credit card and fake ID and got Mel to 'port you so that you could go on your own?"  
  
"Nice try but your sister would never go along with it."  
  
"Why can't she go? The two of you are the diplomatic ones, I just hit things."  
  
The corner of Japhi's mouth quirked as she tried not to smile. "You're supposed to guard and protect me, and you can't do a very good job of it if you stay here."  
  
"You're immortal, what can harm you?"  
  
"I was thinking more about limiting publicity. It wouldn't do if I burned or even shifted in the middle of the hearing."  
  
I groaned again. Damn, I really didn't want to put up with all of that bullshit. Was it really possible to die from boredom? And if it was, could a nearly immortal dragon die from it? Not if some of us could possibly live to see seventy burnings or more.  
  
"I still don't understand why humans fear mutants so," the young phoenix interrupted my thoughts.  
  
"Humans fear anything that is different or that they can't understand."  
  
"But mutation is completely natural and necessary. It isn't even as unnatural as mage gifts."  
  
"We know that, but they don't."  
  
"Well they're narrow minded fools!" she burst out with an unnatural show of emotion.  
  
I raised an eyebrow in surprise, the phoenix was supposed to be immortal and emotionless, devoid of feeling, yet Japhi had developed quite a passion for the 'mutant problem.' It was disturbing to say the least. If she could have feelings for mutants, did it mean that she had learned to love?  
  
My hand instinctively went for my belt knife. She couldn't have learned to love, or else she never could have burned a year ago. And there was just the three of us-all female-hiding out in our own personal island fortress so she hadn't learned to love since her burning. So what was going on? Love was the only thing that would truly destroy an immortal.and I was her Guardian. Crap. 


	2. Old Friends

I kept a firm hold on Japhi's arm throughout the entire hearing to both restrain her and to siphon off the extra power that leaked past her shields. And here I thought that I would be the fidgety one with the attention problem. My ward alternated between bouncing with excitement and readying herself to lung at particularly.unpleasantly opinionated speakers. If we hadn't been in such a public space I would be tempted to help Japhi wrings their necks before crispy frying them. Oh wait-death by burning is a much more painful way to go. Wringing their necks would be such a waste of potential. Humans and their petty prejudices.  
  
Mel had once said that immortals were like abused children, innocents who had seen far too much of life. Of course, she also said much the same about weredragons except that she left out the innocent part-we were created to kill and destroy which is why we guarded the phoenix. Too bad there weren't many male white dragons in all of recorded history, then it truly would have been a pairing of opposites.  
  
Japhi tried to leap forward but I pushed her down in her seat with my free hand. She dragged me hear in the first place so she damn well was going to stay for the entire thing-without manifesting her true form. Now that was something that the media would just love.  
  
Okay, next time flaming bird girl needs a babysitter, Mel has the honors. Even if she isn't a White Dragon and nearly immortal. At least she's a mage. That would work.for all of two seconds. Damn, how did Kat survive seven thousand years of this?  
  
It was Senator Robert Kelly's turn to speak and he was just as charming and just as much of a pain in the ass as usual. At least he was no longer against mutants-I wonder why? NOT! I had seen his eyes flash yellow for the first time two-three years ago. Mystique's been a busy little girl. Not that I liked girls, but she looked a heck of a lot better blue and scaly. Of course I would be partial to scales. I wonder if she had any brothers?  
  
Finally the hearing ended and everyone started filing out of the hall. I kept a hand on Japhi's arm to keep her from bolting out.   
  
Japhi grinned foolishly.  
  
The hall was almost empty save for a couple of people still discussing the hearing. Japhi pulled free and skipped out into the corridor, giggling all the way.  
  
By one of the windows, something caught my eye, bringing me up short.  
  
"Charlie?!" I screamed before pouncing on the man in the wheelchair.  
  
"Roana? I haven't seen you for years!"  
  
I hugged him before pulling away to perch on the windowsill. "It's been what? Ten? Twelve?"  
  
"Fifteen, Erik and I were working on a post doc project together and you were the undergraduate intern assigned to out lab to get coffee," Charles Xavier gestured to his companion. "May I introduced to you Ororo Munroe, also known as Storm. She teaches History at my school. Storm, this is an old friend-"  
  
"Friend? If I remember right both you and Erik used to call me 'that damn bitch' at least twenty times a day. And what is this about a school?"  
  
Xavier tried not to laugh. "If you had stayed away from the programs that you were supposed to there wouldn't have been a problem."  
  
"Uh.how many alterations to the Cerebro program did you find?"  
  
"Two hundred fifty three, a hundred ninety two before you left."  
  
I frowned, working out the numbers in my head. "Damn! I had been sure that I had made at least three hundred modifications. A hundred and forty to operating system controls, seventy to the memory cache, fifty to the neural interface, and forty for pranks in general, although I still maintain that the backdoor was Erik's contribution."  
  
"Do you mean the one triggered by a complex series of numbers or the one triggered by entering the phrase 'Erik is a pansy and Charlie is a stuck up prig'?" Charles raised an eyebrow in amusement.  
  
"It didn't say that-oh crap!" I groaned as he started to laugh.  
  
"BUSTED!" a child's voice call.  
  
I looked up at the insane cackling. "Japhi, are you coming down or are you going to give me an essay on thirty uses for telekinesis that don't involve flying or pranks?"  
  
"Let's see.rapid healing, exciting molecules to burst into flame, calling wind or lightning, shape shifting, rapidly cleaning my room-oops, probably shouldn't have mentioned that one." She floated down, landing gently on the floor.  
  
I rolled my eyes. "Charlie, this.imp is my daughter Japhi. Japhi, this is Dr. Xavier who I used to annoy-I mean work with." She giggled at my quick shift of phrase.  
  
"Actually I am a professor now."  
  
I could almost see the wheels turn in his head as he calculated her age.  
  
"Is she Erik's?" he asked bluntly.  
  
"No. She's actually my cousin but I adopted and raised her. Besides, Erik wouldn't even give me the time of day. He said that because I wasn't a mutant, I wasn't worth the air that I breathed."  
  
"But you are a mutant, I saw you levitating things in the lab when no one was looking, and you always have been able to block me from your mind." His white haired companion looked surprised at that.  
  
"Japhi, Mel, and I are mages with minor mind gifts. Japhi's talents obviously extend more towards telekinesis." I glared at the red haired imp who just smiled innocently before ruining the effect by sticking her tongue out.  
  
"Perhaps the two of you would like to visit the school? Unless you have other plans of course," Charles offered.  
  
Japhi perked up at the thought of a mutant run school.  
  
"We'd love to," I replied, my ward's eagerness almost overwhelming my thoughts. "I'm just doing some independent research and home schooling Japhi, nothing that can't be put off for a while." I growled in my mind but she quieted almost immediately.  
  
The professor looked at me in surprise. "Your mind voice is very strong."  
  
I winced, I hadn't realized that I had been broadcasting. "Family trait. Sorry about that, I'm not used to being around other 'paths. The three of us don't get many visitors so we needn't bother restricting our range when we yell at each other."  
  
************************  
  
Japhi was almost literally bouncing off the walls by the time the car pulled into the driveway leading to the Xavier Institute. In barely more than an hour I had already been forced to siphon off significant portions of her power on three separate occasions. She might be several thousand years old compared to my thirty five, but she was still a young child without any playmates.  
  
Professor Xavier laughed at her antics. "She didn't by any chance sneak some sugar or caffeine when you weren't looking?"  
  
"Nah, she's just looking forward to being able to play with other children. It's just the three of us back home and Mel isn't that much younger than I am. I think she's tired of amusing herself."  
  
"Perhaps she would like to take classes with the other students even if you will only be here for a day or two. She might benefit from the interaction."  
  
"Not unless you either want a major explosion or have advanced college level classes. Japhi is.different. We had to pull her out of public school because she was bored and a bored telekinetic is Not a Good Thing. Her pranks are bad enough when she isn't bored. She's almost done with Pre- Med and plans to either John Hopkins or Tufts for medical school in the Fall. Her hardest problem will be keeping her powers in check long enough to finish all of her training."  
  
"She mentioned healing earlier, how exactly can a telekinetic assist healing?"  
  
"Telekinesis can be used to knit bone and tissue together as well as speed up the chemical reactions within a cell. Everything about healing can be boiled down to movement, and if you can affect movement, you can affect healing. It just takes fine tuned control."  
  
Charles laughed. "For some reason, I have a problem with seeing that imp with the control needed."  
  
"Oh she has the control, but she also has an excess amount of energy." She was bouncing again. "Japhi!"  
  
"Sorry," she mumbled, slumping down in the seat.  
  
Storm parked the car in the very large garage that I remembered from my earlier visits. This time however, it was filled with an interesting assortment of cars and motorcycles, mostly in excellent condition. Somebody was trying to overcompensate for something.  
  
"Charles? Who has all the toys?"  
  
"Scott Summers, he's in command of the X-men. His fiancée died a year ago and he still isn't coping. Japhi reminds me of her, minus the restraint. Jean was always hesitant about her powers whereas Japhi is very eager and willing to use hers." Something in his voice betrayed his sadness even though his mind was shielded from casual contact.  
  
Japhi leapt out of the car as soon as the door opened. Next time we needed to go somewhere, we will be flying-and not in an airplane. That much power in an enclosed space was too much for any sane person to deal with, granted Mel didn't consider me sane, but I'm not that much a glutton for punishment.  
  
"Wee! Toys!"  
  
"Japhi!"  
  
"Motherrr-"  
  
"No Japhi." I sighed, this was going to be a long visit. Whoever this Summers guy was is going to be getting a very rude surprise quite soon.  
  
Xavier raised an eyebrow. "Is she always like this?"  
  
"Always and forever."  
  
***********************  
  
A/N: Thank you to those of you who have reviewed the story. Please email me if you have advice or corrections to make, I appreciate constructive criticism and apologize for problems ahead of time since I don't have a beta. 


	3. That Which was Lost

A/N: Thank you to those of you who have reviewed, and thank you for putting up with my beta-less story. To those of you who are reading this but haven't reviewed, shame on you! Any reviews are appreciated. All flames will be used to heat my castle in the wintertime.  
  
**********************************  
  
"Checkmate."  
  
I sighed and knocked over my king for the fifth time that evening. Charles was a brilliant strategist. I had never seen war, yet he saw it every day. Out of all the White Dragons, only Katerina had been no stranger to war. We guarded our charges at the expense of our people. For the past three generations the Dragons had been forced to look outside of our race to breed.  
  
"How has your little cousin been doing?"  
  
Snickering, I shook my head. "I learned early on that it was a hazard to my sanity if I tried to keep track of how and what she was doing. Usually I really don't want to know what's going on. If I don't see it, it didn't happen."  
  
Charles laughed. "You haven't had much experience with children have you?"  
  
"Nope," I replied brightly. "Mel did all the babysitting while I studied. She got the kids, I got the homework." My sister hadn't been born a White Dragon, she was a silver in dragon form so I was the one who got Japhi. Oh joy.  
  
"So I don't suppose that I could convince you to teach classes for a while?"  
  
I cocked my head slightly. "I'd volunteer for advanced Physics, but you have that covered. Perhaps something in engineering or computers? It might be possible for students to get college credit, I was an assistant professor teaching first year classes at my college for a couple of years a little after I got my PhD."  
  
"I was wondering if you had ever managed to go to and finish graduate school."  
  
"Just because I spent all of that summer pulling pranks does not mean that I didn't study. I managed a three point nine GPA. It would have been a four except for my final project for Genetics. We were supposed to do a rough gene mapping of our own DNA, I deliberately garbled mine. There were things there that I didn't want anyone to see and it was much safer to make a small error in procedure that botched everything than to fake results."  
  
Charles cocked his head in confusion. "What would you have to hide? You aren't a mutant and no one knows what makes a mage different from other humans."  
  
"There are more creatures than humans that walk the Earth. All of my people are born mages and appear as humans, yet our DNA is distinctly not human. Nineteen pairs of chromosomes and four point one billion base pairs definitely would look odd."  
  
"How? I mean, that seems like an excessive amount of DNA for any creature."  
  
I shook my head. "Not really. My people are incredibly long lived. That huge amount of excess DNA protects the coding regions from damage. There is also a little bit more that is coded compared to humans."  
  
He looked at me with the curiosity of a fellow scientist. "How is it that neither humans nor mutants have never heard of you or your people?"  
  
"But you have." I pushed my chair back as I stood up and headed towards one of the many bookshelves lining the walls of his study. My fingers danced over the leather bound tomes, many older than my dam and sire, as young as they had been at my birth. Finally I found the one that I was looking for. "Blackwell's Treatise on Mythical Beasts" was one of the older ones; I had given him it as a parting gift at the end of my internship after several afternoons discussing "The Once and Future King" and the possibility of any of the magical creatures being real. Erik had gotten a dozen rotten eggs and a box rigged to cover whoever opened it in neon pink paint.  
  
I flipped quickly through trying to find the specific entry before turning it so that Charles could read it. "He doesn't give very good descriptions, but they're as accurate as any that I have come across so far."  
  
"What? But this is about dragons!"  
  
I started laughing. It was so easy to forget that my mind was closed to him. "Aye, and we do guard treasure but it is a treasure more priceless than all the gold and jewels in the world. It is the power of creation."  
  
He just looked at me stunned although he had seen enough not to be too shocked. "So Japhi and your sister are dragons as well?"  
  
"Not Japhi," I shook my head. "But she is my cousin all the same. Her father was my uncle and a dragon, but her mother.was something entirely different. Their people have no males with which to breed so they look to other races. No matter how diluted the blood, they always bear daughters and breed true. Japhi is my ward until she either finds her mate or I die."  
  
I picked up two game pieces in my hand. Absently, I turned the pieces over in my hand. The white queen and a black pawn. In only a short time the pawn would reach the eighth square.  
  
****************************************  
  
Japhi slipped quietly into the game room where many of the students were. She had never seen so many children at once even before her last burning. The Dragons had too hard a time breeding for there to be more than one or two offspring every generation and the only Dragon child that she had ever seen had been Kat who had been born eight hundred years after Japhi's first burning.  
  
"Hey! What's your name?" one of the older girls called out.  
  
"Japhi Sundancer. My cousin is a friend of the Professor's. I think that they used to work together but I'm not sure," she replied hesitantly, her previous eagerness gone. "He invited her to visit for a while and I got dragged along."  
  
"So you're not a mutant?" a boy asked snidely.  
  
The red haired girl glared at him. "I'm a telepath as well as pyro- and telekinetic, although there really isn't a difference; any decent telekinetic can excite molecules until they combust." As if to prove her point, the boy's shoe laces suddenly burst into flame.  
  
Most of the teenagers started giggling or outright laughing as he ran out of the room.  
  
"Good one! We've been trying to take him down a few notches for months! My name's Rogue by the way," the girl who had spoken earlier held out her gloved hand.  
  
Japhi shook it and looked at her oddly. "Why do you wear gloves inside?"  
  
"It's my mutation. If I touch someone I drain their energy and powers."  
  
"Oh!" The younger girl's eyes widened as she smiled widely. "Ro-my cousin- does the same thing, mostly so I won't make something go up in a ball of flame. She must have siphoned off my power at least a dozen times already today."  
  
Everyone was shocked. "How is that possible? And how come you're not hurt or anything?"  
  
She shrugged. "Ro says that I'm nearly an infinite source of energy-I regenerate what is lost in a matter of minutes at the most. Besides, she has very fine tuned control over her powers. You should talk to her, she might be able to help you although I think that your powers are more passive and hers are active. She has to think to drain power.well.maybe not anymore. I've certainly given her enough practice."  
  
Rouge perked up at the possibility of controlling her powers, no matter how slight the chance. "Have you been introduced to the teachers yet?"  
  
Japhi shook her head. "Only Charlie and Storm."  
  
"Charlie?"  
  
"Ro's name for the Professor. It seems to annoy him for some reason," Japhi grinned broadly. Annoying people was fun. "Not sure why. I didn't bother to scan his mind."  
  
Rogue looked at her in surprise. "Only an idiot or someone incredibly powerful would be fool enough to try to get inside the Professor's mind."  
  
"Considering some of the comments that they were trading back and forth, I wouldn't want to see what was in his mind. No one ever told me that mutants could get into that much trouble without running into cops."  
  
The older girl looked a little pale before shaking it off. "Would you like to show you around? You could meet the other students and most of the teachers."  
  
Japhi almost danced with glee. "Please? At home there's only Ro and her sister Mel, and they pulled me out of school the first week. Something about a bored pyrokinetic in a public school was a very bad idea."  
  
"I would imagine. We get into enough trouble as it is," she laughed before introducing Japhi to the other students in the room. Kitty and Jubilee were ecstatic about having another girl around and Bobby made her an eagle out of ice.  
  
"Rogue, didn't you need to see Cyclops about flight training?" Bobby asked suddenly.  
  
"Oh crap!" she took off towards the hallway before pausing to turn around. "Japhi, would you like to come? We'll probably meet a couple of the other teachers."  
  
The younger girl giggled before jumping up into the air and taking off after her new friend, zipping around above her head. Rogue grinned. "You have had a lot of practice, few telekinetics have the concentration and patience needed to fly."  
  
"What can I say? I was *bored*."  
  
Rogue laughed and continued on, towards the wing containing the classrooms and teachers' offices. She knocked on the office door.  
  
"Come in," came the muffled reply.  
  
She opened the door and walked in, Japhi trailing behind. "You wanted to see me?"  
  
"Yes." The teacher caught sight of Japhi who was looking around the office. "Who's the new girl?"  
  
"Japhi Sundancer, her cousin used to work with the Professor and they're visiting for a while. I offered to show her around." Rogue turned to the younger girl. "Japhi, this is Scott Summers but most people call him Cyclops."  
  
She barely heard Rogue but was instead staring intently at a photograph of Xavier and three others. One woman she recognized as Storm and the man wearing the visor was Cyclops, but the third. "Excuse me, but who is this?" Japhi pointed to the red haired woman. "She looks exactly like the pictures of my mother."  
  
"What?!" the other two exclaimed in shock.  
  
Japhi looked off in a daze. "Jenna Grage I think her name was. She disappeared almost as soon as I was born, leaving me with my father's family. They wouldn't tell me anything other than she was barely more than a kid. It's been so many years.she couldn't possibly still be alive." She reached out to touch the picture, frowning. "She would have burned out long ago, between her uncontrolled telepathy and pyrokinesis."  
  
Rogue was the first to find her voice. "That's Jean Grey, she died a year ago."  
  
The younger girl blinked and looked up. "Charlie said something about that. She was the one that was going to marry One Eye over there?"  
  
Mr. Summers sputtered without speaking as he watched her rapidly retreating back. 


	4. The Uncertainty of the Past

A/N: Sorry about the delay, my muse for the story went on hiatus and I forgot to update with my already written chapters.  
  
Reviews-positive or negative-are highly encouraged although you may want to send flames P.O. Box 1313, Eighth Circle of Hell as I can pick them up on my twice daily visit.  
  
Any suggestions will be taken into account as my muse is still missing, maybe your ideas will prompt my muse into returning sooner. I am especially looking for different ways for Japhi to get into trouble, she has been entirely too innocent. She really needs to get to directly annoying Scott. Any ideas on what to do about Jean? I have a pretty good general idea but many of the specifics are eluding me.  
  
*************************************************  
  
"You do know that alcohol isn't allowed on school grounds?" Japhi commented from her perch on top of the oversized refrigerator.  
  
The dark haired and scruffy man jumped and looked up in surprise from his search for the beer that he had hidden the day before. "Who the hell are you?"  
  
"Japhi Sundancer." She leapt down lightly without the need to cushion her fall with her powers. "I'm going to be here until my cousin gets tired of snogging the Professor."  
  
"I was not snogging Charlie, we were playing a few games of chess."  
  
To the man's amusement the girl groaned at the new arrival. "Ro!"  
  
"Stuff it little bird."  
  
"You first, you overgrown lizard."  
  
"At least I can kick your but."  
  
"You'd have to catch me first," Japhi taunted.  
  
The man laughed. "You seem more like sisters than cousins."  
  
"My uncle died before she was born and her mother disappeared soon after so Japhi was left for my grandmother and I to raise. My name's Roana Draka." The white haired woman held out her hand.  
  
The man took it. "Logan, but I'm also called Wolverine. Are you related to Storm?"  
  
"Miz Munroe? No, although white hair does seem to be a rather common family trait for both of us. At least most people seem to call her Storm, otherwise it would be much more confusing, there are so few people that call me anything other than 'Ro' or 'that damn bitch'."  
  
"So.what did you do to earn such an illustrious title?" Logan snickered.  
  
"I am assuming that you are at least moderately familiar with Cerebro?" He nodded. "I was the lab assistant for Charlie and his partner, Erik Lenscher. They didn't give me enough to keep me occupied so I played around a bit with the programming. Apparently I gave the two of them more credit than they deserved because I just found out that he missed a significant portion of the alterations."  
  
************************************  
  
Japhi flopped down on my bed, looking very confused. "Ro? Can you swear that you will answer something truthfully?"  
  
I frowned, not sure what she was asking. "Of course."  
  
She took a deep breath. "Is there any chance, no matter how slight, that my mother could be alive?"  
  
"Jenna lost her immortality when she fell in love with my great-great uncle. Once you were born she became nothing more than a Dragon like he was, but stuck forever as a two legger. Our lifespans are long enough so it is possible that she still lives, but she would be quite old. I seriously doubt that she is alive, once your father died and you were born, there was no point in existing. We do not give our hearts easily and unless we carry a child we follow our mates to the grave, often before the funerary rites have even started." I sat next to her and placed a hand on her shoulder hesitantly. Our clans' blood had mingled on more than one occasion yet I did not feel the push for a mate like she must. Too much Other blood ran in my veins.  
  
"Is there any chance that there could have been other children?"  
  
I shook my head. "You are the Phoenix so you could not possibly have older siblings, and although Jenna had become a two legger with your birth, she was still a Phoenix with the constraints of fidelity."  
  
"But surely-"  
  
"No child would come from an unwilling union. We have that much control over our bodies. We bear no child without actively trying and wishing for one."  
  
She giggled. "You never did tell me about who Kat finally fell for."  
  
I started talking about Tierenze, one of the first Others to thin the blood of the Dragons. Soon, it was apparent that her mind was elsewhere so I slipped into her consciousness carefully as I moved on to talking of my grandparents. A photograph leapt into my view. I recognized Charles, Storm, and the man who was introduced as Cyclops. The fourth.I paused as I overlaid with it was the formal portrait of my thrice removed aunt and uncle on their wedding day. There was also a name, Jean Grey. This human woman was as close in face and even name to Jenna Sundancer-Grage as could be. A potentially formidable telekinetic and telepath, her powers were what could be expected of a Phoenix past her last burning.  
  
A second Phoenix? But that is impossible! Or is it? I frowned mentally. The Phoenixes were a separate race just like Dragons, so why were only the firstborn the ones who inherited the power and true form? It couldn't be magic, true magic didn't exist; even what mages did could be explained by exceedingly advanced physics. There were enough examples of parthenogenesis in higher organisms to explain why there were only female Phoenixes even though a mate was required, but surely it was more than a one shot event. Self cloning would also explain why every Phoenix looked like the identical twin of her mother.and grandmother.and the rest of her ancestors.  
  
If the power of a Phoenix was completely genetic, then why hadn't any younger siblings ever manifested a single burning? And if one had, why hadn't any of the Dragons felt or heard of the surge of power? No Phoenix could go for long without the burning, and what of the immortality? Surely someone would notice if they couldn't be killed. Unless. . .what if they were truly immortal only in their true form? It would explain the need for Guardians. And the burnings were a result of reaching old age. What if a Phoenix who had been allowed to age didn't burn? Would she die of old age without the life giving flames?  
  
"Earth to Ro, come in please!" Japhi was waving her hand in front of my face. "What's wrong? You seemed to be out of it for a moment."  
  
"I was just thinking."  
  
"Of what?"  
  
"The past and why there are so few of us left. I fear that your daughter will be left without a Guardian."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"You know that our numbers are small but I do not think that you truly know how few of us are left," I paused, looking at her. "Mel and I are the last remaining Dragons and even our blood is diluted by Other. There are no males, kin or not, among which I could find a mate. Never in all of the records of our peoples has the blood survived more than three generations without loosing identity. My children will be mortal as well as Other."  
  
"Is there nothing that we can do?" she asked, somewhat panicked.  
  
I refused to look her in the face.  
  
"You would have to bear a son and I would have to become a mortal." She looked down at her hands before continuing. "I have lived for six thousand years not counting the years spent in stasis. You are my third Guardian; first there was Grandmother, but she died before my second burning, then Aunt Kat, and now you. I have lived long enough so I would not regret leaving my immortality behind."  
  
"It will be many years before that will be necessary. Who knows? Perhaps I will never be able to have a child, much less a son." I winced mentally. No matter how old she really was, she was still a young child and I did not relish the thought of her signing her future away in a feeble attempt to bolster a dying race.  
  
*******************************************************  
  
Japhi followed Rogue into the class, taking a seat next to her in the back of the class. Storm came in and surveyed the students, her gaze settling on the younger girl. "Aren't you supposed to be in a different class?"  
  
"Nope. Med school doesn't start until the Fall, so I was told to go to whatever classes I felt like."  
  
Storm almost choked. "Med school?"  
  
The girl nodded emphatically. "I always wanted to be a doctor and since I got pulled out of public school, I've been taking college classes."  
  
"Can you tell me what parthenogenesis is?"  
  
Japhi nodded. "The simplest explanation is that it is self cloning. As a rule, during oogenesis, instead of the oocyte going through the stages of meiosis, it goes through mitosis, producing a viable zygote genetically identical to the mother. A slight variation that also occurs, and is considered more common, is that the oocyte goes through the first stage of meiosis where each daughter cell has doubled copies of half of each pair of chromosomes. Each zygote essentially contains a full complement of chromosomes but each pair is identical, so that the offspring only has half its parent's genome. The offspring of either process is invariably female, although there are theories that in a bird the latter process would produce a male due to the reversal of the sex chromosomes that has the males with the homologous pair and the females with the mismatched pair."  
  
The class was silent as everyone stared at her.  
  
"What?" she asked innocently. "Hacking into computers like Cerebro is Ro's forte. I had to do something to stay out of trouble."  
  
"You do realize that both you and your cousin have been forbidden from so much as getting near Cerebro without supervision until the Professor manages to find and repair all the alterations that she did?" Storm asked in amusement.  
  
"It's been working just fine for more than fifteen years," Japhi grumbled.  
  
Storm cocked her head as if listening to something. "Xavier and your cousin say that Logan is going shopping for supplies and will be leaving in five minutes. They suggest that you go with him, and when you get back to report to the medical ward to help Hank. The technology is much more advanced than you are likely to find at even med school."  
  
Japhi groaned, gathering up her things before heading out. She almost bumped into Cyclops on the way out.  
  
"Miss Sundancer, why aren't you in class?" he asked rather icily.  
  
She remained unfazed by his attitude. "There aren't any classes here for me that I haven't placed out of. I'm supposed to help Wolverine pick up supplies. Good day Mr. Summers." Japhi turned and walked away, waiting until she had turned the corner before she would allow herself a grin as she patted a slightly bulging pocket of her jeans. 


End file.
